First Ashes Test Day Two – The Final Over of the Day

Cricket not being played under lights due to bad light.

Ball One 12.55am – England have wasted a valuable new ball by allowing the Australian openers to leave lots of deliveries: exactly what they would have wanted to do when they talked about plans for the day. In Australia, batsmen can leave on length as well as line, so the bowlers’ margins of error are narrow indeed!

Ball Two 1.15am – The sweeper has come into Test cricket from one day fields, but is only ever posted at deep point or deep midwicket When a captain wants to encourage the bowling to be full (as surely Strauss does) to post a sweeper very straight at long on to cut out the boundary hit in the V. It’s seldom seen though.

Ball Three 3.10am – The England attack has been talked up prior to the tour but, at lunch, Australian fans must have been wondering what it was all about. After lunch, it was a different game with the ball reversing and Finn showed why so many England fans are excited about his potential. Anderson too, has shown himself to be a much stronger proposition than he was four years ago, with his pace cut but his movement enhanced.

Ball Four 4.40am – Mike Hussey’s place has been under threat since the Ashes in England in 2009, but his experience and self-belief significantly outshone that shown by a very out-of-sorts Michael Clarke and a tentative Marcus North. As usual, he was strong on the pull and the cut which he mixed up with a straight six. He did miss out on some half-volleys, but with wickets tumbling at the other end, he made sure that he only took on the bowlers in areas in which he was comfortable.

Ball Five 6.05am – England face a decision about the new ball. With bowlers tired after a day shouldering a four man attack and Hussey and Haddin likely to enjoy the extra pace from the hard new ball, Strauss could wait until the last twenty minutes before taking the cherry in order to have a newish ball tomorrow. I suspect he won’t though.

Ball Six 6.15am – Approaching the end of the second day, the shape of the series emerging suggests that wickets may fall in batches and that partnerships, once established, are critical to preserve, even at the cost of scoring more slowly than we have seen in recent years of Test cricket. Patience has become a devalued currency in Test cricket since about 1990, but it will pay dividends in this series.

The Tooting Trumpet, whom you can often find at Testmatchsofa.com and on Twitter at @garynaylor999 and @Fakeadil.

Responses

Clarke is a growing concern. Our best bat for last few years (even ahead of our surprisingly solid openers!) but as per India he just doesn’t look like he is all there at the moment.

Terrific knock from Hussey. Thought early on it was the best he has looked at the crease in a long time. More compact in defence, had his leave going and very positive in attack. l’ve long thought his pull shot is his real barometer. Gets on it late when out of touch. That knock against the Vics seems to have helped him turn the corner just in time…

Liked Finn long term at first real look.

Didn’t get to see much of Swann but clear he has a massive role to play in this series.

Am a bit worried that just like 2009, Australia are slowly buildings an advantage which gets all too quickly wiped out. I’d say sessions 1 and 2 yesterday were even, session 3 yesterday and today, plus session 1 today were Australia’s and only session 2 on day 2 belonged to England and yet things still feel delicate. Maybe England should get more credit for the first two sessions on day 1?

I might feel a little better about things if it wasn’t for the very slow scoring. (The higher scoring rate generally wins test series) Clarke, North and Haddin combined were 32 off 129. A little closer to a 50% scoring ratio from these three and the game is very much with Australia. I guess I should be grateful that Haddin hasn’t “done a Haddin” when tied down.

Feels like we could just as conceivably get 225 as 450 on day 3, which in general are the days I love to watch, but I dunno, maybe the fear is getting to me.